"Do you know that dog?"
Translation:Znacie tamtego psa?
28 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
ok someone can explain to me why, "kochasz to dziecko" is right but "znasz to pies?" is wrong?
409
Dziecko is a gender-neuter noun, so "this child" is to dziecko.
Pies is a gender-masculine noun, so "this dog" is ten pies.
ok now i know when i use the accusative case i have first to split between gender neuter,male and gender female
if female i have alays to use accusative
if male and neuter are objects i have to use nominative case, if are persons or animals i have to use accusative case, but now i'm learning that if gender is neutral i have to use nominative case as well.... am i right ?
No no no. The cases are not dependent on the gender. The cases are dependent on their function in the sentence, on the verb that was used, on the preposition they follow... things like that. Every gender has a form for every case.
So in singular, you have: masculine (ten pies = this dog), feminine (ta książka = this book), neuter (to dziecko = this child). These are the Nominative forms, the dictionary ones.
Both "kochać" and "znać" from your comment take Accusative. Accusative is probably the most often used case. However, there is one thing that gets more complicated here: the masculine gender.
In Accusative, masculine divides into animate and inanimate. On top of that, a big number of nouns (mostly food and beverages) are considered grammatically animate despite any logic. So for masculine you have two versions of "this": "ten" (for inanimate nouns) and "tego" (for animate nouns). So, take "widzieć" (to see):
Widzę ten stół (I see this table), but Widzę tego psa (I see this dog).
Complicated? Well, yes, definitely. But you will get around it with enough practice :)
so in this case i have to consider "dziecko" as neutral inanimate noun, and so i have to use the nominative case, correct ?
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It's neuter. Animate/inanimate doesn't matter. With gender-neuter nouns, accusative = nominative. In this example, to dziecko is still in the accusative case, it's just that it's identical to nominative. It took me some time to get used to these differences of gender and case
If you had "Do you know this child?" that would be "Znacie to dziecko?" - but that's not Nominative, that's Accusative. Yes, as va-diim wrote, it looks the same, but you have to know that it is Accusative because for some other genders it's not identical to Nominative. Gender doesn't determine the case. Gender is attributed to the word, and you have to find the proper form to match the case that you need. Here, the verb "znać" needs Accusative.
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Given that English doesn't have different forms for 2nd person singular and plural, why is my answer "Czy znasz tamtego psa?" not acceptable?
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Furthermore, on my second attempt I put: Czy znacie tamtego psa? and was marked wrong for not including "wy". But the translation at the top of this discussion page suggests it's not wrong to leave out "wy". I'm confused. What's going on?
I think becayae you used CZY you have to include ty or wy for clarification since its more formal. If you left out czy, then "znacie tamtego psa?" Would be correct
Scratch that. I have no idea why it was marked wrong because i typed " czy znasz tego psa" (without the ty) and it was right. Maybe a glitch?
There are some glitches sometimes, true, although users rarely provide screenshot that prove that this is what happened ;)
"Czy znacie tamtego psa?" definitely should have worked. Including the subject pronoun is usually totally unnecessary, as it is known from the form of the verb. So mostly it emphasizes the subject, shows some contrast.
I answered "znacie tego psa" and it was marked right. Are tego and tamtego interchangeable?
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They're not interchangeable, but Polish uses ten, "this," the way that English uses "that" when referring to a proximal noun. In Polish, tamten is used to indicate distant as opposed to proximal. English "that" is used more loosely when determining objects.
Is there a list I can turn to to tell me which nouns are masculine and which are not? Since dogs can be female or male .....this is confusing.
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Just look up any Polish word on Wiktionary.org and it will say m., f., or n.
The gender of the animal doesn't matter. It's the grammatical gender of the noun that's important, just like a fork, knife, a food item, for example, has a grammatical gender even though it has no biological gender.
Look at the basic, Nominative form of the noun. Your first assumption should be:
It ends with a consonant - it's probably masculine.
It ends with -a - it's probably feminine.
It ends with -o, -ę, -um - it's almost certainly neuter.
You have exceptions of course, even in some quite basic words (masculine mężczyzna or tata, feminine mysz), you just have to learn those.
To add to what va-diim wrote, the gender of the animal can matter. There is one 'default' word for the species, and it has its own gender (masculine "pies" for a dog, feminine "kaczka" for a duck, etc.), but if you feel the need to specify the gender of some particular animal and it's not the 'default' gender of this species, then there will be a word for it (e.g. "suka" or "suczka" for a female dog, especially the first one is quite risky as it's basically equivalent to "bitсh"; "kaczor" for a male duck - like "Donald Duck" is "Kaczor Donald" while "Daisy Duck" is "Kaczka Daisy").
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Is the sentence " Czy pan zna tamtego psa ?" A good translation ?
I am trying to use the formal you and i never know if there is a problem with my sentence or if the formal answer is just not yet in the accepted answers. Do i have any notification when i was wrong to say " my answer should have been accepted ?"
Merci beaucoup ( bardzo dziękuję)
Yes, it's a good translation, it's the "formal answer is just not yet in the accepted answers" category. Added now.
If you report a sentence, and it seems you did, you should receive an e-mail notification after the answer is accepted.
Whenever the verb takes a direct object, you choose znać, when the verb is followed by a preposition or introduces a subordinate clause, you choose wiedzieć.
There are a few exceptions, though. Some pronouns function as a direct object of wiedzieć, like: nic, coś wszystko.
The pronoun 'to' works with both verbs, with a difference in meaning:
Znam to. - I'm familiar with it / I've encountered it before.
Wiem to. - I possess knowledge of it / I have been informed about it.
There problably used to be a distinction in Russian, too, but the verb ведать was largely replaced by знать at some point.
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In English, "that" is used more frequently as an indicator than in Polish "tamten/tamta/tamto," and Polish "ten/ta/to" is used more frequently as an indicator than in English "this."
I note psa (Polish for dog) ends in an a. So one would have thought it to be a feminine , not a masculine noun (like mezczyczna). Is this another exception to the rule that feminine nouns end in a?
It's not an exception. 99.99% of masculine animate nouns have the -a ending in accusative. The nominative here is pies.